Marketing For Dummies, 4th Edition

Marketing For Dummies, 4th Edition

by Alexander Hiam
Released May 2014
Publisher(s): For Dummies
ISBN: 9781118880807

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Book description

Master the latest marketing tools and trends

Marketing strategies are evolving faster than ever before, and mastering the latest and greatest strategies are essential to getting results. This updated edition of the classic marketing bestseller includes new and revised material, with full coverage of the latest marketing trends and how to effectively apply them to your business. Whether it's boosting your baseline marketing skills, figuring out social media, developing a comprehensive Internet marketing strategy, or getting expert tips on effective local marketing techniques, Marketing for Dummies, 4th Edition has everything you need in one easy-to-use and accessible guide.

Effective marketing is about knowing your customers and giving them what they want, when they want it. The latest marketing research tells us that every customer interaction is an opportunity to grow your business and your bottom line, which is why you need a results-oriented marketing plan. With this updated, practical, and savvy guide to marketing strategies that work, you can apply the skills you already have more efficiently than ever before Marketing For Dummies, 4th Edition gives you the structure and practical advice you need to get the most out of every marketing initiative and, ultimately, grow your business.

  • Maximize the lifetime value of your customers

  • Connect web marketing strategies to real world traffic and sales

  • Implement local sourcing to boost local and regional marketing initiatives

  • Focus your online marketing strategy to target only qualified buyers

    • Before you waste any more time with ineffective and potentially costly marketing missteps, let Marketing For Dummies, 4th Edition establish viable marketing strategies that will help your business succeed.

    Table of contents

      1. Introduction
        1. About This Book
        2. Foolish Assumptions
        3. Icons Used in This Book
        4. Beyond the Book
        5. Where to Go from Here
      2. Part I: Getting Started with Marketing
        1. Chapter 1: Optimizing Your Marketing Program
          1. Know Yourself, Know Your Customer
            1. Asking the right question
            2. Filling the awareness gap
            3. Focusing on your target customer
            4. Identifying and playing up your strengths
            5. Discovering the best way to find customers
          2. Finding Your Marketing Formula
            1. Analyzing your Five Ps
            2. Refining your list of possibilities
            3. Avoiding the pricing trap
          3. Controlling Your Marketing Program
          4. Refining Your Marketing Expectations
            1. Projecting improvements above base sales
            2. Preparing for (ultimately successful) failures
          5. Revealing More Ways to Maximize Your Marketing Impact
        2. Chapter 2: Strengthening Your Marketing Strategy
          1. Finding and Riding a Growth Wave
            1. Measuring the growth rate of your market
            2. Responding to a flat or shrinking market
          2. Growing with a Market Expansion Strategy
            1. Offering more products
            2. Riding a bestseller to the top
          3. Specializing with a Market Segmentation Strategy
            1. Gauging whether specializing is a good move
            2. Adding a segment to expand your market
          4. Developing a Market Share Strategy
            1. Choosing a unit
            2. Estimating market share
            3. Understanding where your product fits in the market
            4. Knowing your competitors
            5. Studying market trends and revising if need be
          5. Designing a Positioning Strategy
            1. Envisioning your position: An exercise in observation and creativity
            2. Writing a positioning strategy: The how-to
          6. Considering Other Core Strategies
            1. Simplicity marketing
            2. Quality strategies
            3. Reminder strategies
            4. Innovative distribution strategies
          7. Selling Innovative Products
          8. Writing Down and Regularly Reviewing Your Strategy
        3. Chapter 3: Writing a Marketing Plan
          1. Grasping the Value of the Marketing Plan
          2. Reviewing the Contents of a Good Plan
            1. Starting with baby steps
            2. Maximizing efficiencies
          3. Understanding the Do’s and Don’ts of Planning
            1. Don’t ignore the details
            2. Don’t imitate the competitors
            3. Do find your own formulas for success
            4. Don’t feel confined by last period’s budget and plan
            5. Don’t engage in unnecessary spending
            6. Do break down your plan into simple subplans
          4. Writing a Powerful Executive Summary
          5. Preparing a Situation Analysis
            1. Knowing what to include in your analysis
            2. Being prepared for economic cycles
            3. Taking stock with a competitor analysis table
            4. Explaining your marketing strategy
          6. Clarifying and Quantifying Your Objectives
            1. Think about the limitations in your resources
            2. Don’t expect to make huge changes in customer behavior
          7. Summarizing Your Marketing Program
          8. Exploring Your Program’s Details
          9. Managing Your Marketing Program
          10. Projecting Expenses and Revenues
            1. Buildup forecasts
            2. Indicator forecasts
            3. Multiple scenario forecasts
            4. Time-period forecasts
          11. Creating Your Controls
      3. Part II: Leveraging Your Marketing Skills
        1. Chapter 4: Researching Your Customers, Competitors, and Industry
          1. Knowing When and Why to Do Research
            1. Researching to find better ideas
            2. Researching to make better decisions
            3. Researching to understand love and hate
          2. Asking Really Good Questions
          3. Paying Wisely for Market Research
          4. Researching the Low-Cost (Or Free!) Way
            1. Observing your customers
            2. Asking customers questions
            3. Posing your questions
            4. Considering some sample questions
            5. Comparing your approach to that of your competitors
            6. Creating a customer profile
            7. Entertaining customers to get their input
            8. Using e-mail to do one-question surveys
            9. Surfing government databases
            10. Establishing a trend report
            11. Analyzing competitors’ collateral
            12. Researching your strengths
            13. Probing your customer records
            14. Testing your marketing materials
            15. Interviewing defectors
            16. Asking kids about trends
            17. Creating custom web analytics
          5. Riding a Rising Tide with Demographics
        2. Chapter 5: Engaging Your Marketing Imagination
          1. Turning the Tide with Creativity
            1. Conducting a creativity audit
            2. Changing (almost) everything
          2. Applying Your Creativity
            1. Writing a creative brief
            2. Including creativity in product development
            3. Considering creativity and brand presentation
          3. Generating Rich Ideas
            1. Coming up with new ideas from simple activities
            2. Making creativity a group activity
          4. Managing the Creative Process
          5. Tapping Highly Creative Contributors
            1. Are you really a creative genius?
            2. How do you tap into those crazy creatives when you need them?
        3. Chapter 6: Pumping Up Your Marketing Communications
          1. Pursuing Your Communication Priorities
            1. Achieving high frequency without sacrificing quality
            2. Being clear
            3. Being consistent
            4. Adding stopping power to catch the customer’s eye
            5. Being as persuasive as possible
            6. Checking the accuracy of your communications
          2. Communicating to the Entire Brain
          3. Exploring Four Strategies for Boosting Your Communications’ Appeal
          4. Pull Power: Building Customer Traffic
          5. Tightening Your Writing
          6. Creating Great Visuals
            1. Embracing hierarchy in design
            2. Relying on experience to avoid homemade design disaster
      4. Part III: Advertising for Fun and Profit
        1. Chapter 7: Perfecting Your Printed Materials
          1. Designing Printed Marketing Materials
            1. Including the eight necessary parts
            2. Putting the parts together: Design and layout
            3. Going with a professional designer
            4. Crowdsourcing designers through contests
            5. Doing the design on your own
            6. Finding your font
            7. Bringing it all together in a perfect flow
          2. Producing Quality, Effective Brochures
            1. Knowing the purpose of your brochure
            2. Laying out and producing your print brochure
            3. Publishing an e-brochure
          3. Placing a Print Ad
            1. Determining whether you can afford an ad
            2. Finding inexpensive places to advertise
            3. Selecting the ad size
            4. Testing and improving your print ad
        2. Chapter 8: Signing On to Outdoor Advertising
          1. Heading Back to Basics: The Essential Sign
            1. Knowing what your sign can do
            2. Finding reputable sign producers
            3. Writing good signs
            4. Researching the regulatory constraints before posting a sign
          2. Going Big: Posters and Billboards
            1. Deciding on formats for outdoor ads
            2. Grasping the limitations of outdoor ads
            3. Maximizing the returns on outdoor advertising
          3. Exploring the (Rather Creepy) World of Intelligent Locational Ads
          4. Putting Your Name on Portable Items
            1. Trying your hand at T-shirts
            2. Getting slapped on with bumper stickers
            3. Putting your name on bags
            4. Staying dry (or shaded) with umbrellas
          5. Taking Your Message to the Streets
            1. Leveraging your vehicle fleet
            2. Flagging down your customers
            3. Capturing attention with canopies and awnings
            4. Eyeing different alternatives
          6. Keeping Your Message on the Move with Transit Advertising
        3. Chapter 9: Broadcasting Your Message
          1. Producing Ads for Radio
            1. Recognizing the cost value of radio time
            2. Going the direct route with your goals
            3. Targeting your radio advertising
            4. Looking into audio podcasts
            5. Considering web radio
          2. Identifying Less Expensive Ways to Use the Power of Video
            1. Planning your video shoot
            2. Shooting your own high-quality video
          3. Designing Ads for TV and YouTube
            1. Proceeding with TV ads
            2. Getting emotional
            3. Being visual: Show, show, show
            4. Answering the question of style
            5. Purchasing ad time on TV
            6. Buying spot television and web video ads on a shoestring budget
            7. Using vlogs in place of TV ads
      5. Part IV: Finding Powerful Alternatives to Advertising
        1. Chapter 10: Maximizing Your Web Marketing
          1. Creating and Managing a Web Identity
            1. Standardizing your web identity
            2. Using the top inch to advantage
            3. Registering domain names
          2. Developing Your Hub Website
            1. Designing a hub website on the cheap
            2. Using responsive design for mobile devises
            3. Hiring a professional designer or firm
            4. Looking at the core elements of a good hub site
            5. Fashioning a registration-based site
          3. Following Simple Rules for Higher Traffic
            1. Driving traffic with content
            2. Reaching your traffic tipping point
          4. Adding Satellites around Your Hub Site to Draw Visitors
            1. Using landing pages effectively
            2. Building relationships by blogging
            3. Getting active on social networking sites
          5. How to Advertise on the Web
            1. Starting with pay-per-click search ads
            2. Adding banner ads to your repertoire
            3. Furthering your web campaign with creative display ads
          6. Knowing How Much to Budget
          7. Understanding E-Mail Etiquette
            1. Sending appropriate individual e-mails
            2. Going over the guidelines for mass e-mails
        2. Chapter 11: Making a Positive Impression in Low-Cost Ways
          1. Making the Most of Word of Mouth
            1. Engaging with customers and followers on social media
            2. Managing word of mouth
            3. Capturing the power of viral marketing
          2. Using Publicity to Your Advantage
            1. Sniffing out good stories
            2. Finding the hook: Think like a journalist
            3. Communicating a story to the media
            4. Sending press releases to website editors and (especially) bloggers
            5. Considering the hodgepodge of video releases and wire services
            6. Going directly to readers with a blog
          3. Premiums: The Most Abused and Misused Medium of All!
            1. Creating an impact with your premiums
            2. Prizing premium quality over quantity
        3. Chapter 12: Leveraging Face-to-Face Marketing Opportunities
          1. Harnessing the Power of Face-to-Face Marketing
            1. Considering your options
            2. Avoiding boredom to ensure interesting events
          2. Sponsoring a Special Event
            1. Know your options
            2. Run the numbers
            3. Screen for relevance
            4. Express your values and convictions
          3. Putting On Your Own Public Event
            1. Selling sponsorship rights
            2. Getting help managing your event
            3. Expanding the event online
          4. Exhibiting at Trade Shows and Exhibitions
            1. Knowing what trade shows can accomplish for you
            2. Building the foundations for a good booth
            3. Locating trade shows
            4. Renting the perfect booth
            5. Setting up other kinds of displays
            6. Doing trade shows on a dime
            7. Passing out premiums
        4. Chapter 13: Going Direct with Your Marketing
          1. Beating the Odds with Direct Marketing
            1. Recognizing that practice makes perfect
            2. Knowing what you’re up against
            3. Focusing on tactics that create high response rates
            4. Maximizing direct response on the web
            5. Expanding your command with demand side platforms
          2. Making Your Direct-Response Ads Work
          3. Delivering Direct Mail
            1. Unlocking the secrets of great direct mail
            2. Getting your letter mailed
            3. Purchasing mailing lists
          4. Establishing and Running a Call Center
            1. Make your brand available by phone
            2. Be accessible to desirable customers when they want to call you
            3. Capture useful information about each call and caller
            4. Gather data on the effectiveness of direct-response ads and direct mail
          5. Drumming Up Business by Phone
            1. Developing a good call list
            2. Writing a winning telemarketing script
            3. Keeping legal
            4. Looking at new telemarketing strategies
      6. Part V: Selling Great Products to Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere
        1. Chapter 14: Making Your Brand Stand Out
          1. Burning Your Brand into Your Customers’ Minds
            1. Getting tough about your brand identity
            2. Narrowing logo options down to one strong design
            3. Focusing on your website
            4. Branding throughout your “herd”
          2. Coming Up with a Brand Name
            1. Naming your brand with personality
            2. Identifying your brand’s personality traits
            3. Giving a memorable and meaningful name
          3. Designing a Product Line
            1. Eyeing depth and breadth
            2. Managing your product line effectively
            3. Protecting your product line and brand
          4. Strengthening an Existing Product
          5. Identifying When and How to Introduce a New Product
            1. Making the old new again
            2. Stealing — er, borrowing — ideas
            3. Picking your customers’ brains
            4. Using the significant difference strategy
          6. When to Upgrade an Existing Product
            1. Passing the differentiation test
            2. Passing the champion test
        2. Chapter 15: Finding the Right Pricing Approach
          1. Eyeing Pricing Opportunities and Constraints
            1. Raising your price and selling more
            2. Avoiding underpricing
            3. Exploring the impact of pricing on customers’ purchases
            4. Finding profits without raising prices
          2. Setting or Changing Your List Price
            1. Step 1: Figure out who sets prices
            2. Step 2: Examine your costs
            3. Step 3: Evaluate customers’ price preferences
            4. Step 4: Consider secondary influences on price
            5. Step 5: Set your strategic objectives
            6. Step 6: Master the psychology of prices
          3. Designing Special Offers
            1. Creating coupons and other discounts
            2. Figuring out how much to offer
            3. Forecasting redemption rates
            4. Predicting the cost of special offers
            5. Keeping special offers special
          4. Staying Out of Trouble with the Law
            1. Staying ahead of U.S. regulations
            2. Watching out for tighter rules elsewhere
        3. Chapter 16: Distributing Your Product Where Your Customers Are
          1. Taking a Strategic Approach
          2. Tracking Down Ideal Distributors
          3. Understanding Channel Structure
          4. Reviewing Retail Strategies and Tactics
            1. Looking for heavy traffic
            2. Developing merchandising strategies
            3. Creating atmosphere
            4. Positioning your store on price
          5. Stimulating Sales at Point of Purchase
        4. Chapter 17: Succeeding in Sales and Service
          1. Knowing When to Emphasize Personal Selling
          2. Taking Stock of Your Sales Skills
          3. Making the Sale
            1. Generating sales leads
            2. Purchasing lists for lead generation
            3. Conducting multistep lead generation
            4. Developing great sales presentations and consultations
            5. Responding to problems
          4. Organizing Your Sales Force
            1. Determining how many salespeople you need
            2. Hiring your own or using reps
          5. Compensating Your Sales Force
          6. Retaining Customers through Great Service
            1. Measuring the quality of customer service
            2. Profiting from good manners
            3. Offering virtual service and a helpful knowledge base
            4. Practicing service recovery
            5. Using content to court customers
      7. Part VI: The Part of Tens
        1. Chapter 18: Ten Common Marketing Mistakes (And How to Avoid Them)
          1. Buying into Too-Good-to-Be-True Website Claims
          2. Scamming, Social Media Style
          3. Selling to the Wrong People
          4. Competing on Price
          5. Forgetting to Edit
          6. Not Emphasizing the Brand
          7. Offering What You Can’t Deliver
          8. Treating Customers Impersonally
          9. Blaming the Customer
          10. Avoiding Upset Customers
        2. Chapter 19: Ten Tips for Boosting Web Sales
          1. Take Well-Lit Product Photos
          2. Choose the Right Backdrop
          3. Include Info for Comparative Shoppers
          4. Add Streaming Video
          5. Provide Prompt E-Mail Support
          6. Supply a “Contact Me Now” Option
          7. Design a Clean, Uncluttered Site
          8. Offer Straightforward Site Navigation
          9. Build an Appealing, Trustworthy Brand
          10. Put Your Web Address Everywhere
      8. About the Author
      9. Cheat Sheet
      10. More Dummies Products

    Product information

    • Title: Marketing For Dummies, 4th Edition
    • Author(s): Alexander Hiam
    • Release date: May 2014
    • Publisher(s): For Dummies
    • ISBN: 9781118880807